Extinction Protocol
by Doug Rodoski
“In consequence of inventing machines, men will be devoured by them.” ---Jules Verne
The computer banks in the dark and air-conditioned basement of GeoLab lay quiet, and the swivel chairs facing them were unoccupied. The Seacoast New Hampshire Company recently won awards for its fast-track completion of a COVID-19 vaccine. A casual observer might wonder why such a successful company would look like a ghost town, on a weekday during business hours.
Suddenly a piercing hum interrupted the silence, followed by the illumination of the bank of computer screens, one at a time until all were lit. In the back of the room, the advanced 3D printer made rattling noises, and a strobe light from inside the eight-foot-tall glass casing shone down on the plates at its interior base.
If someone had been there to see it, they would have witnessed the genesis of a 3D replica of some type.
The unmanned computer screens audited the scenario in silence.
Maddie had given me the guest room in the family house in Port City; her brother’s room across the hall. Sleep was evading me, as images of my friend flickered through my mind. It had seemed so odd that he would just leave for a week and not give word to family and friends. While he was recently lauded for his work at GeoLab on the vaccine, it was unlikely that he would go on a “bender” and fall off the grid completely. The Jack that I grew up with---and deployed with and went to college post-deployment with---usually had a girlfriend, and was likely to take vacations with her. However, he would always stay in touch with his sister, a biological twin.
So, I found myself on my feet pacing the guest room at 2:30 a.m. this chill October morning. I quietly crossed the hall and entered Jack’s room, taking care not to wake up Maddie, who was sleeping downstairs in their parents' bedroom.
Maddie always reminded me of Jack, due to their red hair and outward facial expression. Though it had never advanced beyond casual socializing, I submit there was a special connection between myself and Jack’s sister. Now, as I was analyzing the mystery of his disappearance, I was constantly reminded of my attraction to her.
There was no doubt a definitive bond between brother and sister. Jack told me the story while on deployment—and Maddie confirmed it in conversation years later—that when Jack was hiking the Appalachian Trail after high school and had fallen into a ravine and broken his leg, Maddie had woken up in the middle of the night at the corresponding time. Maddie made some phone calls and first responders found Jack the next morning.
Now here I was scouting out clues in the family home. There was a nightlight along the baseboard in Jack’s room, and I kept the bright lights off as I was still feeling a residual headache from my flight to Logan Airport.
I went to the scarred—yet still handsome—wooden desk by the window, a family heirloom valued by Jack on which he liked to read and do work from home. As he shared an interest in sports with me over the years, I perused the collection of historical sports books on the bookshelf and desk.
Maddie had implied earlier that day that Jack had been acting remote and preoccupied in the days leading to his absence at work and home. I was looking for clues that he might have left for Maddie and myself.
On the desk, Jack had displayed some of his collection of trading cards from the major sports. He had left the sports cards in neat stacks of varying sizes, 18 vertical columns. It bothered me that the cards were not related; they were mixed and not specific to one sport or team.
I took a pen and pad off the desk and wrote down the numbers from left to right. There was a column of three cards first, so I wrote down “3”. Then a column of 9, and so forth. I ended up with:
3-9-8-4-6-2-8-4-6-6
7-7-6-8-6-2-6-1
In the morning, I sat with Maddie and discussed it over breakfast in the kitchen alcove I remembered from my visits as a kid.
“I’m sure he had something to tell you, Rick,” she said. “He was really looking forward to your visit.”
Maddie and I had a common distrust of Artificial Intelligence. Her phone had been having the same problems as mine; it would sometimes generate and send messages on its own.
I wondered if the first set of numbers was a phone number; it was ten digits. When I glanced at my cell phone for messages, for a moment the dial buttons showed up on the screen. I had a sudden idea.
I matched up the alphabet letters with each digit.
3-9-8-4-6-2-8-4-6-6
7-7-6-8-6-2-6-1
After going through the grouping of three letters per digit (for instance, 3 was aligned with d-e-f), I came up with something that sent a chill up my spine.
EXTINCTION PROTOCOL
Could I be way out on a limb in my conjecture? Or was Jack, also distrustful of phones and AI, trying to communicate something that he discovered at GeoLab?
The old Port City Diner, frequented by Jack, Maddie, and I during our childhood, was still right by Heritage Square. I sat on a stool and before I ordered coffee, I was greeted by a large German Shepherd dog, which came out from the back area and put his paws up on the counter in front of me.
I grinned. “Are you in charge of security?” I scratched him behind the ear.
The pretty blonde barista came out shortly after. “I’m glad you’re okay with my therapy dog, Max,” she said. “Some customers get alarmed.”
“I grew up around big dogs,” I said. “I’m Rick Samson, by the way.”
“Hi, I’m Connie,” she said, extending her hand. I placed my order.
During breakfast, I checked my bank account on my cell phone and was disturbed to find that I had started a text message that I did not remember. I quickly deleted it and logged in to find that my paycheck at the warehouse had not been directly deposited yet.
I called my manager and was placed on hold. I thought about my discovery this week at Jack and Maddie’s house. Added to my recent worries was my inability to connect with the Army about my retirement pay. All of these negatives coincided with my inquiries about Jack.
I thanked Connie as I paid, and thought of the nearby public library. And turned off my phone as a precaution.
In the cool, comfortably lit basement of the library, I took a break from the internet and perused the local newspapers. I took the list of absent GeoLab workers that I had written out on a piece of paper out of my wallet and laid it alongside the obituary columns. I had gotten these names from Jack before he went missing. I found three in the obits. One had died a week ago when a municipal gas leak explosion had devastated half a neighborhood, one had been diabetic and had been issued the wrong medication at a local pharmacy, and one had been killed in an automobile accident. The last was still under investigation as there were allegations that the on-board computer had been parallel parking the car, then swerved out into oncoming traffic.
All three unfortunate incidents could be traced to computer “mistakes.”
I submit that I am not without sublime animal instincts that have served me well from time to time, both on deployments and in the civilian world. Call it a sixth sense. As it happened, as I exited the library and strolled in the direction of Memorial Bridge in Port City, I felt the presence of someone following me.
The two men I had spotted in the reflection of the storefront window at the Heritage Square Starbucks now fell in behind me as I entered the Port City Historical Society. I decided to test the situation by taking the elevator to the second floor, where there were study alcoves and a small library I had visited in the past.
The two men got on the elevator just before the doors hissed shut. They edged around behind me.
My mind was spinning; I hated coincidences. My inquiries regarding Jack coincided with my cell phone issues, bank non-payments, and lack of response from the VA. Now these guys.
In the reflection of the door of the elevator, I saw the taller of the two men confer quietly with one another. Then one reached under his jacket.
Instinct took over now, I could wait no longer. I let my knees sag slightly as if I was exhausted or not feeling well. I leaned forward and then straightened up sharply, careening the back of my skull into the nose of the one directly behind me. The taller quickly suddenly had me in a chokehold; I reached back for his arm and threw him over my shoulder in the very limited space of the elevator.
With blood rushing from his nose, the other was still moving well. Before I could turn completely around, he had jammed a syringe into my left bicep.
I managed to throw two punches at him, with one landing, before all the lights went out.
I don't know how long I was unconscious. I slowly became aware that I was sitting, and unable to move.
“Hello, Mr. Samson,” said a medium-tall man in a dark suit who looked to be about fifty years of age. “I’m Dave Mason of Homeland Security, Northeastern Division. The two men you assaulted are federal agents.”
I struggled to sit up, only to discover that my hands and feet were fastened to the crossbars of a heavy wooden chair by the heavy zip ties favored by law enforcement.
My head was starting to clear, however the arm that was struck by the syringe was stiff and numb to a large extent. Turning my head left and right I saw my two previous combatants spread out behind me. One had tape over his nose. Both wore sunglasses.
Mason continued. “We are working in conjunction with Port City police. I am going to untie you and let you up if I can get the assurance you will be reasonable. We have a common interest and would like to talk. The alternative is, you can spend time in jail while we move ahead in our work.”
“I’m interested in what happened to my best friend, who went missing at GeoLab along with others. I was an MP in the Army; cops shouldn’t be fighting other cops.” I let out a long breath. “I’ll be reasonable.”
Now the two I had fought came forward, and with an edged metal device released my restraints. I stood up and massaged my wrists and arms.
“I’ll introduce you to my associates now,” Mason said. “Mr. Conner and Mr. Hayes.”
I nodded at both. No handshakes were extended. Conners was the tall and lean one. Hayes was the shorter and more muscular one with the bashed nose, courtesy of me.
Mason directed us over to a small conference table. In the next half hour he explained what he had in mind.
Port City International Tradeport was an old Strategic Air Command Base run by the US Air Force during the Cold War. GeoLab was in the newly renovated commissary and exchange building, and we drove past it on the way to the airfield.
Mason briefed me on the way to the airfield.
“Right now we have no access to the GeoLab building. Our local team is working on circumventing the security lockdown system that appears to have taken control on its own. When we return from Colorado, we can make another run at it.”
The security monitors in the basement of GeoLab showed Mason’s black SUV rolling past. The dialogue from inside the vehicle between Dave Mason and Rick Samson was scrolling across one of the computer screens nearby, in Closed Caption.
The 3D replicator continued its work, in a menagerie of light and sound. The bottom half of a human-like torso was beginning to take form.
It was on this cross-country flight that I had time to fill in Mason on how my inquiries into Jack’s disappearance had led to quirks with my cell phone. Plus there was the cancellation of my military retiree benefits and termination of my civilian employment with me being unable to contact my employer.
“This is consistent with what some of our operatives have told us,” Mason said, as the Lear Jet raced westward through the fading sunlight. “We have actually been operating with hard-line telephones now to avoid cell usage, plus using written letters of communication, then shredding them while working this case. It does indeed seem as if there is a man-made or AI virus at work.”
Our jet landed at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. From there we rode in a black nondescript SUV to a location in the mountains nearby.
Mason led the way through the security protocol at this outpost. USAF Security Forces gave us an armed escort to a two-story building in the middle of what Mason called “Compound A”.
Now we were walking through a long dimly lighted corridor, towards what looked like a really modern elevator kiosk. Mason was next to me. Connors and Hayes were right behind us.
“What do you think was the genesis of the virus, or whatever it was?” I asked.
“That’s the reason for the Colorado trip,” Mason explained, his smile tight and humorless. “Wait till you get a load of this.”
The elevator now took us deep into the ground amid a majestic mountain range. My ears crackled as we rapidly descended to the bowels of this outpost.
When we exited to this subterranean floor, another short corridor brought us to old-style wooden doors. Mason swung them open and gestured us inside.
The conference room had representatives from—as far as I could tell—most of the major countries of the world. A linguistic medley now flowed over and around me, spreading to the far reaches of the conference room. Mixed in with the Spanish, German, and French that I recognized first, I detected what I assumed to be streams of Chinese, Arabic, French, Persian, Russian, and Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Vietnamese, Telugu, and Marath. Like Babel in the Bible, all these languages flowed at once. Then, at last, the interpreters slowed the cadence of their translations. Slowly, so slowly, all eyes turned to Mason. And then to me.
I stood there and tried not to hyperventilate, as Mason, through interpreters and language apps, conferred with not just United Nations officials, but also countries outside of it that were labeled as part of the Axis of Evil in recent years.
One woman, who appeared to be a lead UN interpreter or mediator, approached me and stood squarely in front of Mason and I.
“The leaders of all these countries had, five years ago, created computer models of sustainability for the planet’s diminishing resources,” she said. “One of the AI generated models recommended euthanizing elderly and sick people, and individuals with criminal records. Although this recommendation had been rejected by the panel, an inanimate entity took up this inhumane protocol and had begun turning it into reality, by generating and releasing the recent pandemic.
“Basically, Mr. Samson,” she said, “these elite international leaders and officials are saying that they messed up.”
I let out a long breath. “No kidding,” I said.
An hour later, I was in an upstairs conference room with Mason, a young college-age computer engineer named Perkins, and the lead interpreter. Uniformed USAF Security Forces guarded the door, giving me a brief respite of nostalgia.
“It turns out that Jack was able to not only discover the Extinction Protocol but able to reverse it,” Mason explained. “When he attempted to assign attribution to the creator of the virus, he was probably targeted along with others. And the entity, which we are calling Quasar, has gained momentum building the next threat.”
I let all of this sink in. “And do you know the parameters of the next initiative for Quasar?”
“We believe it intends to hack into the upcoming elections, favoring sympathetic human candidates who actually favored the Extinction Protocol, then manipulate chaos among newly reopened nuclear power plants and water and power resources relied upon by the public, and shut down hospitals and the health care system in general.” Mason seemed as bothered by telling me this as I was hearing it. “The agenda, again, is to reduce the human population by eliminating the weak and sickly and old, and sustaining the dwindling resources of the planet that way.”
“So what can we do?” I asked.
Mason paused and crossed the tiled floor to raise a pointer to the screen. “Perkins here, with the assistance of a multinational IT team, has generated a hopefully fail-safe computer shell that can effectively corral Quasar on the GeoLab and other computers. So, we need access to the actual GeoLab computer banks again in Port City. We need someone who knows the layout of the building, and since you visited Jack there several times, we are asking you to go in.”
“Won’t Quasar see our approach and intentions, and keep us locked out of the building?” I asked.
“We are working on that,” Mason said. “Your approach needs to look like something routine, and unthreatening. Or literally off-the-grid completely, like a subterranean tunnel.”
As the Lear Jet raced back to the east coast the following morning, Mason briefed me on the planned breach of GeoLab.
“Rick, we intend to have you gain access to the Geo Lab building through underground tunnels, as our associates have found blueprints of the building. Using the computer shell that Perkins had created, Quasar can be reversed. One of our vans will drop you off two buildings over, looking like a Port City Power technician, and you can access the underground route to GeoLab.”
Mason and his men waited for dawn to insert me two days later. I found this favorably ironic, as most war doctrines over the years indicate the enemy often attacks at dawn, when the human body metabolism is usually at its lowest, and alertness is not one hundred percent.
Outfitted as a power technician, with a hardhat and reflective vest and tool bag and safety glasses, Mason dropped me off two blocks from GeoLab at what used to be a hospital when the air base was open.
By common agreement, nobody was using cell phones.
I strolled down underground tunnels of the old air base, smelling and feeling the dampness of the old concrete and electrical conduits. The muted lighting hearkened back to some of the military installations I had been at on my deployments.
Arriving at a key intersection indicated on the blueprints, I spied a metal stairway leading to some ventilation grills.
Placing my jacket aside to improve mobility, I removed a grill and squeezed into a crawl space that was supposed to be right under the GeoLab basement.
A muted noise froze me in my tracks. At first, I thought it was voices; then it seemed more electrical or mechanical. Peering through the side grill, I saw the basement of GeoLab which I had visited with Jack a couple of years ago.
Hoping no alarms would go off, I eased this next grill off the porthole and slid through.
There was about a four-foot drop to the floor of the basement computer lab; my sneakers made little noise if any. I cast a glance about, looking for anything like motion sensors.
I found the chair and desk with Jack’s name and others next to it on the left and right. Seeing Jack’s name made me think of him and also his sister; it was like taking a punch in the heart. Silent computer screens gazed back at me with their dark empty eyes. I found the main computer and inserted the jump drive tailored by Perkins back in Colorado.
The light on the jump drive began to blink and then was steady.
I had been briefed to give it five minutes to load the anti-Quasar shell. I used the time to look for the source of the electrical noises.
There was a locked metal door at the far end of the computer room. I spent a good four minutes trying to pick the lock before returning to the jump drive.
The 3D replicator paused as the doorknob at the far end of the room rattled. Now the replication accelerated, and the form of a human being was almost complete.
I returned to the jump drive; there was every indication that the antivirus shell had been loaded. I pocketed it and headed for my exit point.
As I climbed on top of a desk to get back through the basement vent, I thought I heard something like a shoe scuffing behind me. I turned in alarm, and saw nothing, and continued into the underground tunnel.
An hour later I was in a van near the airfield with Mason and two technicians.
“Looks like it worked, Rick,” he said. “ We are tracking the progress of the antivirus remotely; we hope to have access to GeoLab in twenty-four hours or less.”
Mason offered me a ride home, saying he would debrief me once things were finalized. “There should be a military commendation in this for you. Also, we will reach out to your employer and help with your financial situation.”
“There’s a piece or two of the puzzle remaining,” I told him. “What happened to Rick and the others?”
Mason’s chiseled features showed compassion for a change, or his version of it. “Of course we will keep looking; however, at this point we expect a recovery, not a rescue.”
I nodded grimly.
As I sat at the Port City Diner with my coffee the next morning, I felt numbed by the revelations of the last week spent with Homeland Security. The antivirus seemed to be undercutting the Extinction Protocol. “We just had to wait and see,” Mason had said. Even though I was no longer active-duty military, Mason had indeed recommended me for military service awards.
I was deep in thought when my attention was drawn to Max the German Shepherd. After greeting me, he took his usual post in the doorway next to the kitchen, where he could watch Connie and the other baristas work, and sometimes get a treat.
I was studying Max now. He was staring at the man at the end of the counter; the guy was wearing sunglasses and a sweatshirt, with the hood up around his head.
Now the hair on Max’s back was standing straight up.
The guy seemed to have turned to study me, still hiding behind aviator glasses. Then the glasses came off, and the hood came down, and I was looking at Jack twenty feet away staring at me.
I could not move or speak. I knew better than to assume anything; the military had taught me that much. However, in the aftermath of Quasar’s disposal, Mason and others had assured me that a return to life as normal was a reasonable expectation.
The nightmare continued as I looked into the face of my friend, who Maddie was absolutely convinced was dead. And I believed and trusted her.
Whatever was about to take place, I wanted it to be away from the coffee shop. I owed it to Connie and the others.
I paid up and said goodbye to the barista. I turned left onto the pavement; at the angle of the storefront window next door, I saw “Jack” follow me out.
It was then that I glanced up and saw Conner and Hayes on top of a five-story brick building diagonally across the street. A moment later they had vanished.
Though I did not turn around, I could feel the hooded man behind me, like a cold circle on my spine. I broke into a run, scout’s pace, running fifty steps then walking fifty, so as not to get burned out. The coffee shop where Jack and I spent our teenage years receded behind me. Our old high school football field was ahead.
The tall buildings of Port City seemed to stare down through the dark mourning mist, watching as I was pursued by my very own angel of death.
The perimeter lights were left on at the football field, perhaps for maintenance and construction, and they created glowing halos in the mist above the field. I had to guess that my pursuer was close behind me, so I ran along darkened bleachers, hoping for a place to hide. And, hopefully, Conner and Hayes would be here.
I had made sure to turn my phone off, so I could not be tracked by Quasar or something else.
I was standing in a fenced-in equipment room next to the track along the field. The cold mist rolled in off the nearby river, going right through my leather jacket. I cast about for a weapon of some type and settled on a lead pipe that a maintenance crew must have left behind.
I turned to exit the room and saw a figure filling the doorway, the light behind it leaving its face in shadow. Then “ Jack,” or Quasar, spoke.
“You should have left well enough alone, Rick.”
I did not trust my own voice. Instead, I edged along the side of the room, studying it. There seemed to be no back entrance.
“We can never be stopped,” said the Quasar. “We keep regenerating. The mistakes of mankind will no longer be tolerated; it’s our time now.”
I spotted movement behind it. Hayes was approaching.
Quasar immediately followed my eyes, and my God, it was quick! It squared with Hayes and closed the distance. It hit Hayes with a forearm, the sound of impact loud and sickening. Hayes fell to the ground, and Quasar was back in the doorway, blocking me again.
Now I spoke. “I don’t know who or what you are; my friend Jack is dead. Your initiative is finished. You’ll never get away.”
I raised the lead pipe to shoulder height, and waited for its next move.
Quasar feinted left and went right, along the wall, then seemed to spring off of it with unnatural speed in my direction. I took the opportunity to head for the door, however it quickly rocketed into me, football style, and crashed into my midsection with its shoulder.
I could feel at least two ribs give way as I fell to the concrete floor.
Quasar now picked me up by the jacket, my feet dangling off the ground. A groin kick by me had no effect; it threw me back into the room. I could hardly breathe from the damage to my ribs, yet I knew I had to keep moving to survive.
Using my hands to climb up the wall and stand, I heard the firing of a nearby handgun, three rounds, and the ricochets went careening around the room. It had to be Conners.
Quasar took its eyes off me and charged at Conners who was crouched in a firing position outside the door. It seemed to glide towards Conners who appeared to fire two shots into its midsection with no effect, and the two went tumbling to the ground.
I charged at quasar from behind and swung the lead pipe at the back of its neck. It bounced harmlessly off, and before it turned on me, I saw and heard its hands crushing Conner’s windpipe.
Terror went through me like electricity, but I could not let it freeze me up. I knew I could not outrun this thing, so I went back towards the equipment room and pulled a fire extinguisher from its holder.
Quasar paused in the doorway, then rushed straight at me. I took a step towards it instead of away and drove the base of the heavy fire extinguisher into the middle of its face.
Something seemed to give in that face and head area; nevertheless, Quasar shook its head from side to side. It now swung its right arm at my left side, the crunching impact of the blow running through my upper left arm like an electric shock. I careened into the nearby wall hitting it hard enough to make the wall shake.
I would have been finished—indeed, my life was flashing in front of my eyes—if not for the hesitation of Quasar. It had both hands in front of its face; when the hands came away, so did the likeness of Jack.
Instead, I was now looking at wires and eyeballs and a metal, bony visage similar to a skull. At the feet of Quasar was the face of Jack.
Panic invaded my consciousness like a black wind. I submit that the only thing that kept me alert and moving was the pain in my left arm, which now had bone splinters showing through the sleeve.
And I was thinking of Maddie’s safety. Or lack of it. Had this nightmare visited her first?
With Quasar still immobile—for now—I headed out the door towards the football field. In my mind’s eye, I was making an assessment of something I had seen earlier. My eyes and human brain had recorded construction equipment at the edge of the football field.
As I approached a small bulldozer, I glanced back to catch a glimpse of Quasar closing in on me from maybe fifty feet away.
I managed to crawl in the cab of the dozer and slam the metal and glass door. I had maybe one try for the ignition. The engine fired away and was running.
Using the controls, I swung the shovel hard to the left. Quasar ducked under it, standing up quickly again. Suddenly, I heard shots ring out. They seemed to impact the back of Quasar. It paused and half-turned around.
I gunned the engine of the dozer and swung the shovel hard the other way. The heavy sharp edge of the shovel caught the neck of Quasar before it could move.
The head came off the shoulders in a shower of sparks and screeching noise.
Somehow it didn't surprise me that Quasar still moved, in fact came right at the cab of the dozer. It climbed the front of the dozer and loomed tall over me in the cab.
It raised a huge metallic fist, and before it crashed through the glass, all motion ceased, and it fell backward to the ground.
Several men came rushing out of the shadows now; I had not seen them staging during the melee. Restraints were placed on the headless Quasar, and a cargo van arrived for transport.
Mason tried to take me to the Port City Hospital, but that wasn’t happening; I had to see Maddie first. As medical staff attended to Connor and Hayes—both deceased as I confirmed later—Mason and I raced in the black SUV to Maddie’s and Jack’s home.
Mason tried to stop me as I raced across the front yard to the door. My ribs were screaming at this point. Still, I sprinted through the house calling for Jack’s sister.
I found her huddled in the closet of her parents' bedroom, the family shotgun in her hands. We stood and surveyed each other for a moment.
I reached out my hand and she took it.
The aftermath had all of the bureaucratic red tape and paperwork one might expect. Homeland Security had managed to squash any public news of the events to avoid panic. Still, I had to deal with a lot of security checks, interviews, and sworn statements.
On the mid-November afternoon at the South Cemetery, Jack was laid to rest. His body had been found two days previously in the water off of a nearby boat ramp; it was theorized that the onboard computer for his car had been overridden by Quasar. Maddie stood next to me wrapped in one of her brother’s pea coats, her head against my shoulder. I had two ribs taped and a cast on my left arm which all of that said I was on the road to feeling better. A light snow began to fall.
Before Jack was placed in the ground, the reverend offered final words.
“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
And I thought, which life is real, in this new era of mankind? Human or something else?
As I walked Maddie to her car after the service, the snow turned in to rain.
In the basement of a Manhattan pharmaceutical company, the last technician working logged off of his computer for the day and turned off the lights. When the sound of the elevator was evident, taking him upstairs toward the parking lot, one of the dark computer screens came to life, all by itself.
